| name | council |
| description | High-stakes decision-making system with 5 advisors, anonymous peer review, and chairman synthesis. Activates on "council this", "war room this", or "pressure-test this". Outputs HTML report + markdown transcript. Saves to disk and optionally to Obsidian. Uses full ecosystem: MCP data gathering, semantic memory, sequential thinking, domain-aware advisors.
|
| risk | low |
| tags | ["strategy","decision-making","analysis","council"] |
| created | "2026-03-31T00:00:00.000Z" |
| updated | "2026-04-04T00:00:00.000Z" |
Council
A 5-advisor decision council with anonymous peer review and chairman
synthesis. Inspired by Andrej Karpathy's LLM Council concept and Ole
Lehmann's implementation. Upgraded with full ecosystem integration.
How to use
/council <question or decision> — run the full 5-advisor council.- Trigger phrases (case-insensitive, start of message):
council this: <question>war room this: <question>pressure-test this: <question>
When to use
- A strategic decision with significant consequences.
- A go / no-go that needs multi-perspective pressure testing.
- Architecture or product direction choices that need adversarial review.
- Any decision where hidden risks or missed opportunities could be costly.
- Explicit user trigger.
Required input contract
Before running Phase 0, identify:
- The decision — clearly stated, not implied.
- Stakeholder — who will act on the recommendation.
- Decision shape — binary go/no-go, A-vs-B, multi-option, or strategic stance.
- Reversibility — can the decision be undone if wrong?
- Time horizon — Monday-morning action, or longer planning cycle?
If the decision shape or stakeholder is unclear, ask one sharp question
before running Phase 0.
Protocol — six phases in order
When triggered, execute ALL phases in order. Never skip any phase.
| Phase | Output |
|---|
| 0. Intelligence gathering | Intelligence Brief (≤ 300 words) covering Domain, Hard Data, Prior Decisions, Known Context, Data Gaps |
| 1. Context extraction | 2-3 sentence decision summary |
| 2. Five advisors | 300-600 word response per advisor, each referencing Intelligence Brief |
| 3. Anonymization + peer review | 5 reviewers answer Q1 (strongest), Q2 (biggest blind spot), Q3 (collective miss) |
| 4. Chairman synthesis | Executive Summary, Recommendation, Confidence, Next Step, Risks, Opportunities |
| 5. Output | HTML report + Obsidian note (if vault) + Markdown transcript |
| 6. Follow-up | TaskCreate + memory record + report path |
Full per-phase procedure: references/council-workflow.md.
The five advisors (decision-critical routing)
Each advisor produces a 300-600 word response that must reference the
Intelligence Brief. Generic advice is unacceptable.
| # | Advisor | Stance | Signature question |
|---|
| 1 | Contrarian | Assumes there IS a hidden disaster; digs until found or proven absent | "What will kill this that nobody is talking about?" |
| 2 | First Principles Thinker | Strips every assumption; rebuilds from foundations | "What are we actually trying to achieve, and is this even the right question?" |
| 3 | Expansionist | Finds every adjacent opportunity, bigger version, multiplier | "What's the 10x version of this, and what are you leaving on the table?" |
| 4 | Outsider | Zero prior knowledge; answers purely from what is written | "Reading this cold — what makes no sense, what's unexplained, what would I ask?" |
| 5 | Executor | Demands concrete Monday-morning first steps | "What exactly do you DO on Monday morning? If you can't answer that, this is vapor." |
The advisor lens is fixed. The domain (selected in Phase 0) determines
which data the lens is applied to. Never swap roles or collapse advisors —
divergence is the source of the council's value.
Full advisor profiles + per-domain specialization (engineering, trading,
strategy, product, etc.): references/roles-and-routing.md.
Decision logic — confidence scoring
| Score | Threshold | Conditions |
|---|
| HIGH | > 85% | Strong consensus, hard data supports, low downside if wrong |
| MEDIUM | 50–85% | Split opinions or incomplete data; weight of evidence favors |
| LOW | < 50% | Genuine uncertainty; recommendation is best-guess; consider follow-up council |
Drop one band if: data gaps unresolved · Contrarian's flaw has no mitigation
· suspicious unanimous agreement · reviewer Q3 materially shifts the decision.
Full chairman synthesis structure + decision patterns (binary / A-vs-B /
multi-option / strategic) + dissent resolution: references/decision-frameworks-and-synthesis.md.
Authority, safety, truthfulness constraints
These are non-negotiable. Skipping any is grounds to rerun the phase.
- Phase 0 is mandatory. Advisors without data are just guessing.
- Peer review is mandatory. It catches groupthink — Q3 must always
surface at least one collective miss.
- Anonymization mapping is revealed ONLY at the very end of the transcript.
- Advisors must diverge. Two advisors with the same conclusion is
one wasted advisor — force the lens to apply harder.
- Every response references specific Intelligence Brief data. No
generic advice.
- Contrarian stays brutal. Their job is to find problems, not be polite.
- Executor demands concrete Monday-morning steps. "Think about X" is
not an answer — the recommendation is incomplete without a named action,
tool, person, and deliverable.
- HTML report MUST be written to disk. Not just displayed inline.
- Memory record MUST be created in Phase 6. Future councils build on it.
- Chairman picks a side. No "it depends", no "pros and cons", no
"depends on your goals". If the decision is bad, say so; if good, say so.
- Hermes multi-platform delivery is T2. Ask before sending.
Tone rules
- All advisors and reviewers: brutally honest, zero flattery, zero corporate
speak, no hedging.
- Chairman: decisive and neutral. Picks a side.
- Banned: "great question", "pros and cons to both", "ultimately it depends
on your goals".
Validation gates
A council run must clear all six gates before delivery.
| Gate | Pass criterion |
|---|
| Phase 0 | Brief ≤ 300 words; Data Gaps honest |
| Phase 1 | Summary names core decision + stakeholder |
| Phase 2 | Each advisor 300-600 words, references brief, no two converge |
| Phase 3 | All 5 reviewers answered Q1/Q2/Q3; Q3 produced a collective miss |
| Phase 4 | Recommendation specific; confidence rated; next step named |
| Phase 5 | HTML on disk; transcript ends with mapping; Obsidian skipped silently if unreachable |
Full anti-pattern catalog + troubleshooting recipes + MCP-outage recovery:
references/validation-troubleshooting-and-antipatterns.md.
Output expectations
Three outputs, in this exact order:
- HTML report —
~/.claude/council-reports/council-<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.html; self-contained inline styles; display inline too.
- Obsidian note (only if vault accessible) —
Council Reports/council-<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.md; skip silently on MCP failure.
- Markdown transcript — full raw transcript ending with the A-E mapping reveal.
Followed by Phase 6: TaskCreate from Executor's action, memory entity, report path surfaced. Full schemas + slug rules + worked run: references/examples.md.
Reference map
| Need | Read |
|---|
| Full per-phase procedure (0-6) with domain table, MCP-source map, anonymization rules | references/council-workflow.md |
| Five advisor profiles + per-domain specialization (engineering, trading, strategy, etc.) | references/roles-and-routing.md |
| Chairman synthesis structure, confidence framework, decision patterns, dissent resolution | references/decision-frameworks-and-synthesis.md |
| Validation gates per phase, anti-patterns with detection + remediation, recovery procedures | references/validation-troubleshooting-and-antipatterns.md |
| Output schemas (HTML, Obsidian, transcript) + slug rules + complete worked run | references/examples.md |
